Punjab Vice Chairperson, Social Protection Authority and Parliamentarian Dr. Ayesha Ghaus Pasha has said that child responsive budgeting is a useful tool to determine the adequacy of the budgetary child related allocations to fulfill children needs in line with international commitments. It is the policy of Punjab Government to accord top priority to the disadvantaged segments of the society including women, minorities and children.

She said this, while chairing a launching ceremony of child responsive budgeting report, jointly prepared by Planning & Development Department in collaboration with the UNICEF. Dr Ayesha Ghaus addressing the participants said the Punjab Government is already committed to increase the allocations in absolute and relative terms and the CRB report's recommendation in this respect is appreciated. Contribution from Government for preparing report was ensured through steering committee headed by Secretary P&D. Children need special efforts as the burden of advocacy of their rights fall on the civil society. The exercise of child responsive budgeting will also provide the impetus for such exercises in other provinces as Punjab leads the way and other provinces can learn from the experience, she added.

Provincial Secretary, Planning and Development Waseem Ajmal Chaudhary, addressing on the occasion, said that Government is committed to use Child Responsive Budgeting report to develop a link between children rights and public policy to achieve Millennium Development goals. This CRB report was the first attempt in establishing a link between children needs and budgetary allocations. This good initiative will not only help in educating the concerned stake holders about the importance of child responsive budgeting but it will also generate demand to make the budget exercise more children friendly. It is new beginning of the Government that the budget should be made child friendly. In this connection, Punjab Government initiated an effort to develop a report on the Child Responsive Budgeting in collaboration with UNICEF. The objective of this initiative was to inform the budget making process at provincial level to promote evidence based child friendly budget, he told. Secretary P&D Waseem Ajmal thanked the UNICEF representatives and consultants for providing a technical support and funds for preparing this report at the last. This report must be publicized widely, he concluded.